That is no excuse for the manufacturer not being on the hook for selling garbage, it pushes the work of QA to the consumer.

Only very large fines will end this endless streak of shit appliances. The only silver lining is that these products are targeted at people with more money to sue them.

I think there's gonna be a renaissance of manufacturers who can charge a slight premium for slightly updated 1950s designs. modern materials, like modern cfc alternatives, but built rock solid, -it just works- tech. knobs. switches.

Mind you, even relatively simple fridges can technically have firmware because these days the cheapest way to implement something like a defrost timer is with a microcontroller. Of course that firmware is so simple that it doesn't need updates and definitely doesn't need to be connected to the internet.

Other than that I don't really see what a smart fridge can do that you can't cover by sticking a cheap tablet on the fridge door. Sure, maybe a smart fridge can order butter from Amazon when it thinks that yours runs out but you can do the same with your phone and "buy it again" in seconds. Assuming that you even want to buy your groceries from an e-retailer.

It's definitely a pointless price inflation device that makes the fridge less reliable to boot.